Could the next Miss Germany be Jewish?

A Jewish contestant seeking to become Miss Germany 2018 has said winning would be “an achievement for the State of Israel and the Jewish people”.

Tamar Morali, 21, who grew up in Karlsruhe, then Vienna, before spending a gap year in Israel, is Germany’s first ever Jewish contestant, and said she felt the hand of history upon her.

Speaking to J-Post, she said: “I see my candidacy not only as a personal achievement but as an achievement for the State of Israel and for the Jewish people in the Diaspora – that in Germany, a country with a very complex history with regard to the Jewish people, there is the first Jewish contestant for the title.”

Morali, one of 20 contestants, said the organisers were interested in her Jewish roots. “They asked me a lot of questions about my Jewish background and how it is to live in Germany as a Jew,” she said. “I am proud to be a German Jew.”

The would-be Miss Germany said the horrors of the past would never be forgotten but found time to call for world peace, adding: “I’m not saying we should forget the past, but find a way that we can all live in peace, and I think this is a good start.”